What To Do If Your Boyfriend Is Depressed

Engage In Physical Activities

Encourage your boyfriend to engage in physical activities. Along with social support and caring, exercise is an effective way to boost someone’s mood as it provides mood-enhancing chemicals called endorphins. Aside from that, physical activities are also a good distraction for him to make him stop thinking negative thoughts. You don’t even have to go to the gym to do this. Make a routine for both of you to do physical activities while bonding with each other at the same time. You could go jogging every morning after waking up or go biking together at the park in the afternoon.

Men With Depression Dont Want You To Fix Them

No one with depression wants a partner to fix them because depression does not mean being broken. The intention of fixing someone may be good, but it can make the person with depression feel you are looking down on them or dont accept them.

This bothers both sexes, but it seems to irritate men significantly more, according to the therapists and men Talkspace interviewed.

Women who are fixers have actually been a trigger for me that makes my depression worse, said TED talk mental health speaker Mike Veny.

There is a difference between supporting someones recovery and trying to take away their problems or change them, Veny said.

Let Him Understand His Worth

Depression could also happen by the rejection feeling of reality he is in. No matter what going on and how hard his life is, you have to reassure him that his life is more worth it than this. You’ll feel that he isnt listening or it wont build a distinction, however, it extremely may be a glimmer of sunshine in what’s a really dark place for him.

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Questions To Figure Out The Impact Of Their Symptoms

These arent questions to diagnose whether or not your partner has depression, anxiety, bipolar, or related disorders. Thats something for you both to find out with the help of a mental health professional.

Instead, these questions are designed to help you determine if your partners symptoms are getting the upper hand:

• Are you sleeping more or less than you normally do?
• Are you eating more or less than you normally do?
• Are you tasting your food when you eat?
• Do you feel tired no matter how much you sleep?
• Are you capable of enjoying things right now?
• Is it hard for you to do personal grooming?
• Are you having thoughts of your own death?

Karen reminds us that theres a difference between simply feeling down and experiencing symptoms of clinical depression. These questions help determine which is happening.

Julie says that, as a partner, you probably already know the answer to these questions, but asking them helps your partner feel respected and gives them agency.

Learn All You Can About Depression

Depression can be the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain or a hormonal imbalance its not necessarily caused by a difficult life or recent tragedy. Depression can be caused by less sunshine or a lack of certain nutrients. To help with your boyfriends depression, think about what the possible cause could be. You dont need to diagnose or treat him just think about his lifestyle and way of handling lifes problems.

Read How to Help Someone With Depression for more tips on helping depressed boyfriends.

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Buffer Stress By Making Space For Yourself

Because depression can feel like a third person in the relationship, you might need a healthy amount of space. This can alleviate the irritability issue mentioned earlier.

Ava Strong, who has dated a man with depression, recommended partners practice healthy boundaries and self-love. This means protecting your mental health by giving yourself space when you feel it is at risk, which brings us to the next piece of advice.

Symptoms Of A Depressed Boyfriend

A post shared by Merlin Strangeway on Oct 19, 2017 at 1:58am PDT

Men tend to be distant and less likely to open up about their emotions, so it might be difficult for us to know if they’re okay or not. However, there are symptoms such as low moods, losing interested in things they once loved so much, fatigue, problems in concentrating, etc. But while these symptoms are what we often see with depression in general, there are others that are more often seen in depressed men and that people keep ignoring.

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What To Do When Your Boyfriend Is Depressed: 5 Tips

Although there are specific issues that are more common in men than in women with depression, how you care for someone with depression are the same, regardless of gender.

When your boyfriend is depressed, he may not recognize his depression symptoms as signs of a mental health condition. He may blame other events in his life , or he may avoid the topic altogether. One of the ways you can help a boyfriend with depression is by helping him find a doctor or mental health professional. This is an important first step in diagnosing and treating depression, but it may not be easy for your partner.

How Is Depression Treated

Men often avoid addressing their feelings and, in many cases, friends and family members are the first to recognize that their loved one is depressed. It is important that friends and family support their loved one and encourage him to visit a doctor or mental health professional for an evaluation. A health professional can do an exam or lab tests to rule out other conditions that may have symptoms that are like those of depression. He or she also can tell if certain medications are affecting the depression.

The doctor needs to get a complete history of symptoms, such as when they started, how long they have lasted, how bad they are, whether they have occurred before, and if so, how they were treated. It is important that the man seeking help be open and honest about any efforts at self-medication with alcohol, non-prescribed drugs, gambling, or high-risk activities. A complete history should include information about a family history of depression or other mental disorders.

After a diagnosis, depression is usually treated with medications or psychotherapy, or a combination of the two. The increasingly-popular collaborative care approach combines physical and behavioral health care. Collaborative care involves a team of health care providers and managers, including a primary care doctor and specialists.

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When A Depressed Partner Falls Out Of Love

John Folk-Williams has lived with major depressive disorder since boyhood and finally achieved full recovery just a few years ago. As a survivor of…Read More

Depression can have a devastating effect on close relationships. Sometimes depressed people blame themselves for their pain, sometimes they blame their partners.

Its baffling and shocking to see them turn into cold and blaming strangers. After years of affection and intimacy, how can they suddenly declare that they dont feel love, even worse, that they have never loved their partners at all?

Depressed partners may refuse to face the inner pain thats wrecking their lives. Rather than seek treatment, they come to believe that its the existing relationship that is ruining them. Their answer is often to leave and find happiness elsewhere.

The specific effects of depression will differ in every relationship, but this is the problem I hear about most often and the one I lived with.

What exactly is the inner pain that cant be faced and dealt with? Reciting the usual list of depression symptoms and the effects they can have on everyday life only gets you so far. General lists dont capture the experience.

Talking about inner pain suggests despair or other unbearable hurt that demands an explanation and must be escaped as quickly as possible. Since depression is a condition that can vary from day to day, that active side of pain can be the driving motive.

What Do I Do If My Boyfriend Broke Up With Me Because Of Depression

Sadly, the breakup has occurred so you already lost the relationship with your boyfriend.

I know you may really want to help your boyfriend and get back together with him, but theres nothing you can do to change his mind. Treat his depressed state as any other breakup and take the usual post-breakup actions.

Separate yourself from himas its what he wants and avoid post-breakup mistakes as much as possible. Just because hes depressed doesnt mean you cant annoy him. Although many depressed people often experience symptoms of suppressed anger, some dumpers still react overtly.

Whichever type your ex is, you dont want to find out. Instead, start following the principles of no contact and stick to them.

Since your ex-boyfriend is choosing to protect himself from more pain, you should as well. His pain may not be exactly provoked by you, but we cant say the same for you. You have expectations of him and so you must find a way to get over the breakup as quickly and efficiently as your mind and body allow.

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Don’t Try To Fix Each Other

Do not try to tell your partner what to do to fix their depression. Even if you’re right, it’ll likely backfire. “Most people don’t really appreciate being told what to do,” Egel says. “Then they get defensive and dig their heels in, and then there’s a conflict, a power struggle. Even if they agree with their partner.”

Just remember, your loved one is not a project to be fixed.

“They’re not broken,” Brateman says. “They’re just depressed.”

The same goes for you. Both of you are worthy of love and amazing, healthy partnershipsdepression and all.

What Are The Different Types Of Depression

The most common types of depression are:

• Major depressiondepressive symptoms that interfere with a man’s ability to work, sleep, study, eat, and enjoy most aspects of life. An episode of major depression may occur only once in a person’s lifetime. But it is common for a person to have several episodes. Special forms of major depression include:
• Psychotic depressionsevere depression associated with delusions or hallucinations . These psychotic symptoms are depression-themed. For example, a man may believe he is sick or poor when he is not, or he may hear voices that are not real that say that he is worthless.
• Seasonal affective disordercharacterized by depression symptoms that appear every year during the winter months when there is less natural sunlight.
• Persistent depressive disorder depressive symptoms that last a long time but are less severe than those of major depression.
• Minor depressionsimilar to major depression and persistent depressive disorder, but symptoms are less severe and may not last as long.

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Is The Relationship The Cause

It can be difficult to tell whether or not a relationship is contributing to emotional difficulties. This is because depression can also cause difficulty in relationships, so sometimes, the two problems are interrelated.

However, in cases where a relationship is healthy, treating the depression may improve someones relationship with their partner as well as their own quality of life.

If a person begins treatment for depression and still feels unhappy in their relationship, it may be a sign that the relationship itself is having an impact on their mental health.

A mental health professional such as a therapist or relationship counselor can help a person understand whether or not their relationship is healthy or beneficial.

Some signs that a relationship is harmful include:

• being blamed for having mental health difficulties
• feeling insecure or unconfident as a result of the partners behavior
• feeling trapped, alone, or isolated from friends and family
• being prevented from making ones own decisions
• experiencing frequent drama and conflict
• feeling threatened or unsafe in any way

People who recognize these signs may be experiencing abuse.

Will My Ex Come Back When Hes No Longer Depressed

In theory, once your ex feels better, he should again look for external factors to feel happy. Most people do. This means your ex is going to rely on other sources of happiness that once brought him pleasure.

Eckard Tolle, best known as the author of The Power of Now says Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within. The very thing that gives you pleasure today will give you pain tomorrow, or it will leave you, so its absence will give you pain.

What Eckard means with this statement is that people depend on external sources for happiness and your ex will probably make the same mistake as well.

Most people fail at fulfilling themselves internally because they never think about it. If youre suffering as a result of the breakup, you are likely looking for ways to be happy with yourself.

Just like you, your ex is also very likely trying to become happy on his own. If he becomes happy with himself, its only a matter of time before he will aim for even greater happinesswith you or with someone else.

Earl Nightingale, a successful American author best known in the genre of personal development says, Success is a progressive realization of a worthy ideal .

It means that our happiness is continuously increasing and at the same timeis in complete correlation with our ambitions .

Once your ex-boyfriend realizes he wishes to become even happier, he will express the urge to continue working on the relationship again.

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Alcoholism And Substance Abuse

Most people say that they drink alcohol to drown their misery and forget their problems. However, most of us do not know that alcohol is actually a depressant. Although it has a benefit to our physical health when controlled, excessive drinking can harm your brain, thus leading to depression. Using abusive drugs can also harm your mental health which would only not cause depression but various other mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and anxiety.

Take Responsibility For Your Own Social Life

Jumping off that last onesometimes your partner wont want to go places when you do, and thats okay.

We live in a world that is really intense about the whole couples must do everything together thing. I really dont get this.

I was lucky heading into my last episode, because I am an introvert in a long distance relationship with a pretty intense extrovert, so we were already used to socializing separately. However, for many people the I cant go places without my partner mentality puts extra strain on relationships that involve someone dealing with depression.

This is especially true for partners who live together. Its a recipe for resentment if the choice comes down to one of you forcing yourself to brave social events you dont have the emotional capacity for or the other skipping events to stay home with while growing more and more resentful of missing out yet again.

Even the change of seasons can have an affect on your spouse or partners mental wellbeing. Here are a few tips for managing seasonal depression.

The solution here is so simple, though: take responsibility for your own social life.

Dont make everything you do contingent on whether or not your partner does it, wants to do it, or can commit to the plan three months in advance. .

Make the plans you want to make, let your partner know they are welcome to join, but wherever they are is okay , and then go have a social life.

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Signs Your Partner Is Dealing With Depression

Looking for early signs of depression in your partner canfeel like a game of Wheres Waldo? subtle clues are often hidden in the backgroundnoise of the daily grind.

Thats where proximity comesinto play. You see this person on a daily, if not hourly basis, so you have to beaware of small changes that take place over time, Dr. Borland explains. Theseare things that youll recognize and say, Hmm, that seems out of character.

Signs of depression in yourpartner might include changes in:

• Communication:Are they pulling away from you? Or do they seem more on edge?
• Substance use:Have they increased their alcohol intake? Are they experimenting with illicitsubstances?
• Mood:Are they more irritable than normal? Are they crying a lot?
• Sleep:Are they sleeping more, or less, than usual?

Come Up With An Action Plan

Depression is not a flat line. You may notice that your partner has some good days and some bad days. It may be helpful to make an action plan for how to respond to particularly trying times, like how youll both rearrange the schedule or communicate with each other.

You may even want to consider a code word. If your partner has a hard time being vulnerable, a code word can let you know that its time to take those extra measures. Not only that, but it will also remind you to be extra patient with them and yourself.

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Boyfriend Broke Up With Me Because Of Depression

Oftentimes, boyfriends break up with their girlfriends because of depression. They make it clear that the breakup is not their girlfriends fault and that its something they must figure out on their own.

If youre thinking to yourself, My boyfriend broke up with me because of depression and his incapability to love me back, tread carefully. Depression is a serious mood disorderespecially if its chronic. It often recurs and continues to haunt the person for a lengthy period of time.

If your boyfriend broke up with you because of depression which he has had for months or longer, he doesnt feel very happy with himself and the way he feels about things and people. To him, the relationship feels suffocating and tedious so he must for his own sake get rid of as many stressors as he can.

On the other hand, if your boyfriend broke up with you because hes been depressed and stressed only recently, then chances are he isnt really depressed. We are all just people who can be easily influenced by others and affected by numerous stressors.

This doesnt necessarily imply we are severely stressed and that we should break up with our partners because of depression. In such cases, as well as others, your ex probably used the Im depressed breakup excuse to break up with you.

There are a few ways to recognize whether your boyfriend broke up with you because of his severe depression and we will get to the bottom of it.